Maya left Andy to finish the second phase of his tier trial, while she returned to Nirsym to collect Hunter and decide what to do with her day.

Should she try to get involved in the zone unlocking groups? Domitius may be evil and obsessed and crazy, but he was right that adding new zones would help more than just him. She thought of Bloodline, trapped far from home until she could gain access to the far northern zones. Zone Six wasn't close to the furthest, and there were still more regions above Kalyx and the Plains, as well as at least one more in the south and east corner of the continent.

It would probably be at least three or four to go before they could reach the area Bloodline considered home, and it had taken Domitius, what, a year even with his obsessed fans? And each unlock got harder? But there were more players as well, so maybe it would balance out.

But would one more trickster really make a difference? She didn't like the idea of working with Domitius, even tangentially. She fundamentally disagreed with his outlook on life. But racing for as much experience and reputation as possible might help her level faster.

No, Maya decided. She wasn’t going to get involved. "I won't actively disrupt his attempts, but I'm not going to help him. Sorry, Bloodline, if you can hear me."

It didn't answer, so if it could still speak in her mind it had chosen not to. More likely it could only communicate with her when she was asleep.

There were plenty of other options. She still hadn't experienced even all the quests in the Kalyx zone, which felt like an oversight. But she'd done a lot of extracurricular activities, gotten involved in a lot of higher zone conflicts, and coming back to drile wings and goblin spears felt like a downgrade. She'd done plenty of that with Mayon. Maya was a mighty mage with tier 5 spell damage. Kalyx was too weak to threaten her. If even her minimal health had been sufficient against the mid-boss of Dazzlemurg's quest intended for a group, then she had nothing of substance left to prove here.

Maya decided she’d collect Hunter and then go to zone two. As she walked through the city she paused just long enough to glance at the quest list, but there was nothing of any particular interest there. The gazebo quest was back, which amused her somewhat. How often did that poor guy's gazebo get destroyed? Probably about as frequently as Windy Creek flooded despite rain being so infrequent.

Game logic. Maya shook her head, laughing.

She felt good. It was a beautiful morning, she was back in the positives with her luck, and she had a new potential friend and partner to level with once he finished his advancement quest. Hunter was one quick leypillar trip away, soon he’d be back at her side.

Life was good, and one bad day here or there didn't make it untrue. She smiled as she hurried across the sand to Nirsym, and spent several minutes praising Hunter for his obedience in waiting for her - and his eager welcome when she returned for him.

"I’ve decided we’ll try zone two today," Maya told him. "I know it’s a bit outside your level range, but if you survive you should level quickly, and if not I’ll revive you as soon as I can so we can try again."

Hunter padded along at her side with his usual equanimity.

Maya transited them to the Western Wilds, (NPCs couldn't use the leypillars, limited to walking between zones, but apparently being soulbound meant that where Maya teleported, Hunter teleported as well,) then flinched when she almost immediately saw the quest-giving boy she'd tried to kill the night before. He caught her looking and immediately fled from view. She'd probably tanked her reputation with him for good, but she would have a good day today instead of a bad one, and she forced herself to believe it was worth it. There was a big difference between -20 and +30; between 0 and +50.

The tier 2 zone was mostly inhabited by human bandits who scattered the place in camps, and that was exactly what Maya needed. A lot of decently challenging foes that wouldn't be too hard to defeat but still enough of a challenge to count.

The luck bonus didn't provide a huge advantage, but at this point Maya was getting comfortable enough fighting with Hunter that she only got them killed twice. Well, he died eight times, but his cooldown was only a minute as long as she wasn't in combat, so she could revive him practically immediately. Only when she got into a group too big for the two of them to handle did they end up wiped.

Other players were a constant irritant, running around, stealing kills, and clearing areas before she could get to them. It made leveling slower than she'd have preferred, but by midday Hunter had reached level 6. Maya herself hadn't leveled yet, though she felt sure that she could hit 15 by the end of the day if she kept at it.

"I could really use a few more of you," she told Hunter. Unfortunately, making the cosmetic pets from the shop battle-capable was just as expensive as soulbinding them - perhaps more. Otherwise she'd have purchased one before now.

"I wonder if there are any other quests that give pets. There should be."

She tried to remember... had Xaneta mentioned anything when they were deciding between zones for her first quest? If she'd said the name of the other quest Maya couldn't remember it. Well, there was an easy enough solution to that.

"Xaneta, Xaneta," she called, and Lucy answered at once. "By any chance do you have a list of which other quests reward companion pets?" Maya asked once they'd exchanged pleasantries.

Lucy laughed. "You've got the pet bug?"

"No, is there one? I know I said I didn't want any bugs, but—"

"No, it was a figure of speech. Pet collecting mania."

"Oh, right. I knew that." Maya giggled. "I think so. I love the flexibility of party fighting, and, well, they're pets."

Xaneta gave her a disappointingly small list of quests, which Maya dutifully transcribed into her journal. There were two for each zone, and most were either one-time only or, like Dazzlemurg's, repeatable after only a month or longer had elapsed between attempts.

Maya thanked her anyway and looked over the two for zone two. Neither looked familiar.

The first didn't seem like it would have anything to do with pets, a task to clear out a particular cave of zone two's ever-present bandits, but Maya hoped that the cave might have a dragon egg or a baby bear or something hidden in it. The second was a search for a traveling elf’s runaway mutant crab, which Xaneta assured her would result in a pet reward for Maya.

After the Dazzlemurg quest, Maya wasn’t going to jump to conclusions about what reward she’d be getting or how, but she couldn’t help wondering if she’d get a crab. She could go for a mutant crab. It might be tankier than Hunter with its shell, probably slower…

No, here she was, counting her unicorns before they were caught. Again. She stopped trying to come up with good names for her crab, because she might not get to keep it, and went to the outpost to search for the missing pet poster that Xaneta said would start the questline.

Naturally, with so many of Domitius’s noobs running around, there wasn’t a single quest available below the still-present minotaur’s master dungeon. And just thinking about trying to take that one brought unpleasant memories back to the fore, so Maya instead ventured back out to kill some more generic bandits and roaming bands of vasps. The latter were significantly harder to deal with, as they flew and could evade Hunter’s attacks much more easily than the humans.

They ended up wiping three more times, which Maya used to check the quest board in case the Missing Mutant quest had shown up, but it never had. The afternoon passed with an amiable companionship as Maya and Hunter moved from companions to smooth teamwork. Hunter began to anticipate Maya's commands, often acting before she'd even decided what she wanted him to do, and she quickly realized that his AI was adapting to her play style as they worked together.

He also became more animated in fights, showing the same spirit and aggression that he'd displayed when she was trying to catch him before officially claiming him. Their connection meant he was no longer wild and unruly, but he was still the same at heart even if it was usually subsumed beneath following Maya's orders.

He continued to level at a quick pace until he hit level 9, at which point his rapid progress slowed dramatically. He hadn't hit 10 by the time they stopped for the night, though Maya did finally reach 15 herself (and promptly assigned all her points to sturdiness, bringing her health up to 219.) Maya stopped by the outpost one last time to see if the quest had appeared, and to her pleased surprise, it had. She hurried over to claim the poster, which reported that Lirse the Wanderer had lost his magically-amplified crab after it grew smart enough to open its cage. The crab was on the loose somewhere in this area, and Lirse offered a great reward for its return.

Maya frowned at the minimal direction on the missing poster. 'Somewhere in the area' could be anything from the immediate surrounds to halfway across the zone.

"Hunter, do you think you can find this crab?" she showed him the picture. The crab had amber crystals for a shell, interlocked in diamond patterns that made it look almost turtleish.

Hunter looked at the picture, then up at her, no sign of comprehension in his eyes.

"Oh, well," Maya sighed and tucked the poster into her inventory. "Guess we just wander around until we find a crab. Keep an eye out. Or a nose. Whatever it is dogs search with."

They set off in increasingly wide loops around the camp, Maya with her Bloodline vision active so she could detect anything crab-shaped moving in the scrubby grass. They searched for nearly an hour before stumbling on a camp of bandits Maya hadn't killed recently. They were gathered around a campfire, clearly preparing their evening meal, and it took only a moment for Maya to slip into stealth and send Hunter charging in while she charged Heart of Magma.

Hunter barked loudly as he neared the group, then bit the nearest in the leg with a deep growl. Maya slammed him a moment later with a ball of molten magma, eliciting shouts of fury from the doubly-injured thief.

Maya continued dropping spells on the bandits one by one while Hunter ran around nipping at them, but focusing on evading as many attacks as possible. When Maya's damage output became too much for him to hold aggro any longer, he turned and attacked the campfire instead.

Maya shouted wordlessly as the remaining three bandits closed in on her fast. She fired one magestrike, hitting all three as they remained in close proximity, but none of them fell.

"Hunter! What are you—"

Hunter barked three times, but didn't run to her assistance.

Maya didn't have time to bring up the companion menus to micromanage him, she had her daggers out and had to focus all her attention on not dying. She'd been halfway through killing one of these three with her magma, and focused on bringing him down first. One against two was much better than one against three.

She took several hits in the process, dropping her health dangerously low. With a growl, Maya disengaged and ran, dodging attacks as she sprinted away from the camp. "Hunter! Where are you?"

She glanced around, but saw only the bandits closing. Hunter was still back at the camp, worrying at their dinner.

"Really? You're that hungry?" She supposed she hadn't fed him yet since she got him, and it had been a couple days now she thought back. Maybe she should prioritize that next time they decided to hunt all day.

But that left her with two angry bandits on her tail and no backup. Her energy was almost out, and she only had enough health to take one more hit without dying.

"Hurry up, Hunter," she pleaded as she ran in a circle, trying to keep ahead of the NPC villains.

Then Hunter came trotting over to her, something in his mouth. Something with too many waving, snapping legs.

She gasped as he dropped it at her feet, the crystal-shelled crab immediately trying to scuttle away. "Oh, good boy! Now get them."

She grabbed the crab, not willing to let it out of her sight, but that left her with the problem of a snapping, leg-waving giant crustacean requiring her full attention to restrain and no focus left for spellcasting.

Well, some things were more important than loot.

Hunter had grabbed aggro and the bandits stopped chasing her. Maya looked back regretfully, then hugged the crab to her chest and sprinted back for the outpost. "Sorry, Hunter. See you soon."

By the time his bar went grey, she was far enough away that the bandits didn't pursue. She continued running until the 're-summon' option appeared, calling Hunter back to her side.

"I promise, we'll get you food and anything else you want as soon as this is over," Maya said, wishing she could stop to hug him now. "You did amazing."

His tail wagged.

Yep. Typical Hunter.

They arrived at the outpost without any further complications, and Maya hurried to the caravan guard by the quest board. "Excuse me, I've finished this quest, finding the missing crab? Do you know where I turn it in?"

"Oh, that old thing?" The guard shook his head. "Sorry, but you've wasted your effort. Lirse the Wanderer is dead and gone, long time now. Just let the stupid thing go, no one wants it any more."

Maya hugged the crab closer. "No one? So, it's free for the taking?"

"I suppose so."

Mission Completed: Missing Mutant. Reward: Crab (pet)

Maya squeeed. She hadn't meant to, but she grinned and squeaked in a very undignified manner, then thanked the guard profusely.

Then she immediately called Xaneta to thank her even more profusely.

"I got a magic crab! How do I name it?"

"In the companion interface."

Maya found the 'Name' area, which currently said 'Crab'.

"Thanks." Maya paused to consider. "What's a good name for a crab?"

"Don't ask me."

"Oh, sorry, I was talking to myself... forgot you were on the line. Thanks for your help. See you soon!" Maya hung up, then set Crab down. Now that it was officially hers, it didn't try to run away or pinch anyone, but stood clacking its pincers in a casual waiting gesture.

"Crabby?" It clicked its pincers at her. "Yeah, I agree, that's a stupid name. A funny name, but you deserve something more dignified. Snappy?"

The crab didn't seem amused.

"Snappy, the Great and Powerful?" Maya asked, giggling. Yep. That was the winner. She mentally typed it in before she could think better of it, officially renaming 'Crab' to 'Great and Powerful Snappy'.

"Snappy, meet Hunter. Hunter, this is our new friend Snappy. Snappy, Hunter is single-handedly responsible for saving you from being dinner. So you should definitely show your appreciation—" Maya broke off, staring in awe as Snappy sidled up to Hunter, leaned up on its rear four legs, and gently embraced the dumbstruck hound with its foreclaws.

"Huh," Maya said. "I guess Snappy is more than it appears."

Snappy clicked its claws in agreement, disentangling itself from Hunter.

She glanced at its character sheet again, finding that Snappy was in fact female, and had quite a lot of intelligence, momentum, and attunement.

"Can you cast any spells?"

Snappy waved her pincers in the negative.

"Ah, well. That would have been too much to expect." Then Maya realized something and grabbed her new pet again, hugging the giant crab to her chest. "We need to get you soulbound ASAP. Come on, Hunter!"

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They ran back to the leypillar, where Maya was pleased to discover that physically carrying a pet allowed her to bring Snappy through the transit.

She winced at the cost to add a second soulbound pet, 300 gold was nearly all her remaining funds. After this, she'd need to spend a long time grinding to make up the expenditures. But it was worth it. She'd only have to slow down on the pet collecting for the moment, lest she ended up with vulnerable creatures who could be permanently killed if she took them into battle. And that was not going to happen.

Snappy and Hunter would have to be enough for now.

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Great and Powerful Snappy Small Female Beast Level: 12 Affinity: Mental Resistance: Wind 10% Sturdiness: 15 Health: 135 of 135

Momentum: 21 Will: 20 of 20 Agility: 12 Stamina: 117 of 117 Control: 12 Energy: 136 of 136 Attunement: 18 Focus: 10 Speed: 133% Intelligence: 22 Stealth: 132% Flexibility: 18 Awareness: 90% Abilities: 6

Hunter Small Male Beast Level: 9 Affinity: Physical Sturdiness: 18 Health: 135 of 135

Momentum: 18 Will: 18 of 18 Agility: 10 Stamina: 125 of 125 Control: 17 Energy: 70 of 70 Attunement: 8 Focus: 9 Speed: 114% Intelligence: 10 Stealth: 76% Flexibility: 8 Awareness: 60% Abilities: 3